"It's only then to spare you."

"No, no--there are depths, depths! The more I go over it,
the more I see in it, and the more I see in it, the more I fear.
I don't know what I DON'T see--what I DON'T fear!"

Mrs. Grose tried to keep up with me. "You mean you're afraid
of seeing her again?"

"Oh, no; that's nothing--now!" Then I explained.
"It's of NOT seeing her."

But my companion only looked wan. "I don't understand you."

"Why, it's that the child may keep it up--and that the child assuredly
WILL--without my knowing it."

At the image of this possibility Mrs. Grose for a moment collapsed,
yet presently to pull herself together again, as if from the positive
force of the sense of what, should we yield an inch, there would
really be to give way to. "Dear, dear--we must keep our heads!
And after all, if she doesn't mind it--!" She even tried a grim joke.
"Perhaps she likes it!"

"Likes SUCH things--a scrap of an infant!"

"Isn't it just a proof of her blessed innocence?" my friend bravely inquired.

She brought me, for the instant, almost round.
"Oh, we must clutch at THAT--we must cling to it!